


Detaching From Feeling Alive

by tenelevens



Category: Rent (2005), Rent - Larson
Genre: 1990s, Angst, Drama, HIV/AIDS, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, Literally just Mark Cohen thinking, Memories, One Shot, Song: Halloween (Rent)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24865462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenelevens/pseuds/tenelevens
Summary: Set during the song "Halloween," which occurs after Angel's funeral, Mark Cohen thinks back on the events his group faced.
Relationships: April/Roger Davis (mentioned), Benjamin Coffin III/Alison Grey (mentioned), Benjamin Coffin III/Mimi Marquez (mentioned), Mark Cohen & Joanne Jefferson (mentioned), Mark Cohen & Roger Davis (mentioned), Mark Cohen/Maureen Johnson (mentioned), Roger Davis/Mimi Marquez (mentioned), Thomas B. Collins/Angel Dumott Schunard (mentioned)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 3





	Detaching From Feeling Alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oscar_S_Davies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oscar_S_Davies/gifts).



How did they get here? How the hell?

Those two questions were constants in the mind of Mark Cohen as of late, particularly the first one. The second one was just an add-on, really; it was something that added more emphasis, something that made the first question seem more important. Something that made it seem like a priority. All in all, that little “how the hell” added on made this whole thing more of a conundrum than it already was. How one got to where they were, if you looked at it at its face value, was a pretty simple question to answer. For example, someone could be asked how they got famous. Mark imagined whoever that person was would answer that they starred in some movie or some stupid sitcom and gained recognition for it. If it was asked in the context of getting to a specific location, let’s say, the Buzzline headquarters, Mark would answer that he rode his bike through the bike lanes, past all the three-piece suits, who usually carried a briefcases in their right hands and had their MicroTACs in their left (which really seemed to be glued to their ears). Those seemed to be the main two variants of that question. Easy enough to answer. This one, though, this how-did-he-and-his-friends-get-where-they-were-now wasn’t as easy to answer.

How could they lose Angel? Well, really, the answer was simple enough, with the disease of AIDS in all, but when Mark asked himself the question, it seemed… different. For a man who always tended to have a vocabulary, for once, he was lacking. Angel, as his—her—name suggested, was an angel. A gift from whatever god there was, if there was one at all. She was truly a gift from up above, better than all of them in every way. Always had the perfect comeback, that was for sure. If it was not evident by that story Mimi had told back at the church, about the one time Angel was being harassed by someone who was not as understanding and accepting as their group was and had just gone up to the guy and said, “I’m more of a man than you’ll ever be. I’m more of a woman than you’ll ever get,” then Mark was sure his own experiences could serve as sufficient proof. God, and Angel was just so kind; too kind, if he could say so himself. Instead of immediately lashing out at that group of tourists for their distress at being lost and for their confusion out seeing a drag queen for the first time, which Mark knew he would probably do if he was in the same situation, she offered to escort them out of Alphabet City, let them take a picture with her and then said she’d offer to help them find the Circle Line. She didn’t have to help them at all, in fact, she could’ve just gone on with her day and continued to enjoy her time with them (the them being Collins, Roger, Mimi, Maureen, him and Joanne), but she’d ventured away from the group and had helped anyways. Continuing with Angel being charitable, single handedly, she had paid for their meals at the Life Cafe after Maureen’s protest that night, and, when Collins first introduced her to him and Roger, she’d given the both of them a pretty decent wad of cash, which was more than either of them has seen in a while. She didn’t know either of them, had no reason to trust that the money would go to good use, but still, she’d given it to them without a minute’s hesitation.

Angel had helped them, particularly Collins, believe in love. In all the years that he had known Collins, Mark had never seen him happier than when the two of them were together. The man had never really had a person of his own, because he didn’t want to waste his time on someone superficial, which Mark totally understood his reasoning for. With Angel, however, it’d been different. The two of them had just had that chemistry, something he and Maureen could never have. It was that chemistry that only two people who were meant to be with each other had. Their love was real and true, was the type that you had with someone you were going to spend your life with. If things had been different, if Mark’s friends had not been exposed to HIV in the first place, then he was positive the two of them would’ve grown old together and gotten married as soon as they could.

Disease just had to ruin it and bring Angel back to where she had come from in the first place. They’d all been there, watching as it tore away the life and the color in her eyes, watching as it made her sweat when it wasn’t hot. They watched as it weakened Angel to the point of death, unable to do anything about it. AIDS took the best of them like a robber would diamonds, and it had been extremely scary, especially since Mark knew it would happen to Collins, Roger and Mimi one day, too, who were all good friends of him and each, in their own ways, meant more to Mark than anyone ever had. Roger, Maureen, Joanne, Mimi, Collins, Angel, even Benny, who had stabbed them in the back in one of the worst ways possible, were family to Mark. He didn’t think he could imagine a life without even one of them in it. But, now, that was how he had to live; without Angel. Who would be next?

So, how did Mark get where he was now, walking down the pathway throughout the graveyard behind the church, looking all the way from the steeple to the ground? How the hell? If he had to make any guesses of how it all had started, his money would be on some twisted form of Christmas magic. That night, Christmas Eve, last year, or in other words, December Twenty-Fourth, 1989, had been the night everything started, after all. That night was when Collins had come back from his time at MIT, which they’d later find out he was expelled from, and had called up to them from near that phonebooth to throw down the keys. Angel had set up his drums close to the phonebooth, therefore he was able to hear Collins moaning and groaning on the cold concrete of that alley and ended up being able to help him out. He and Roger were also able to confront their former roommate, Benjamin Coffin III, who went simply by Benny, that night, for shutting down their power on Christmas Eve. Mark still couldn’t believe that he had actually done that. When Benny had just laughed in Mark’s face after he told him he was dumped by Maureen for a lawyer named Joanne, who he now got along with pretty well, it had shown how much of a dick he truly was. He had to give the guy some credit, as he was the one who paid for this funeral in the first place?

How could that Christmas Eve be so frozen by the cold but so scalding hot in his memory? Each time Mark touched that stove he’d pull his hand back, as if he had been burned. In other words, he really did not like to think about it. Because what that night was, what that night was was the start of the best few months of his life. Mark had found that community of his own, with the group brought together, and it had brought him immense happiness. Keyword: had. Now, with Angel having died, the memories were tainted. The waters had been polluted, causing them to be unable to be swam in. Right now, if he was being frank, Mark was unsure that they could be detoxified. Everything seemed to have gone to shit. Roger had sold that guitar of his and bought a car. His best friend, the one person in the entire world Mark was positive he could depend on, no matter what the circumstance, was leaving for Sante Fe tonight and abandoning the rest of them, abandoning him. When Benny had brought their shit back, he had said the reason for him changing his decision of keeping it permanently was Mimi. He’d overheard that she had had a thing with him two years ago, and Roger seemed to be done with her right then. It must’ve required a lot to persuade Benny, so Mark suspected they hadn’t just “talked.” Made sense he broke up with her then. Now, Mimi and Benny were a thing. The two of them were actually dating. Did Benny not have a wife at home? Then, during the fucking funeral, emotions had come out so Joanne and Maureen had fought (now that Mark thought about it, the two of them seemed to break up and get back together more times than he could count. Good for them?) and Mimi and Roger had had their own fight. Mark had tried to get them to calm down, but his “calm down,” “everyone please, “guys” and “c’mon guys, chill” didn’t seem to do so very well. Kind of were lame attempts at de-escalating the situation, to be fair. This morning, which was so mild in weather, a day Mark was sure Angel would’ve loved, was so raw with everyone’s emotions. He was just glad he managed to keep his own locked inside. When was he not good at that, though?

“Why are entire years strewn on the cutting room floor of memory,” Mark began as he continued to walk down the path, moving his hands as he spoke, ever the animated person, “when single frames from one magic night forever flicker in close-up on the 3-D IMAX of my mind?”

He wasn’t talking to anyone, not at all. The group had all gone their separate ways, and looking around now with his blue eyes through his thick, black-rimmed glasses, he couldn’t see a single soul kneeling down by a grave and leaving flowers. In regards to what he’d said, when Mark was thinking about it, it had to be the most eloquent thing he’d ever said. Shame no one was around to hear it. It wasn’t anything he could really explain, either; if anyone had heard him, he wouldn’t be able to put it in simpler terms for them if they asked what he meant. To his twisted mind, it just made sense, though he didn’t really know why. It was just true. Moments from that magic night, which he supposed had to be December Twenty-Sixth or so, of climbing up on tables, of raising glasses, of filming protests, of actually getting along with everyone, forever would come in and out of his mind. They would be as clear as if they had just happened the day before, even if he was sixty years old, his vision was worse, he had grey hair and was the only one of them still surviving. No matter what he went through, no matter what happened to Mark Cohen and his friends, those moments, the happy ones, he would never forget. It was all too bittersweet, really.

“That’s poetic,” Mark said of the words he’d actually spoken. Thinking about it a bit more and looking back on his own thoughts, he added, “That’s pathetic.”

Why did it all have to happen like it had? Why had Mimi knocked on their door? Why had she wanted to be with Roger as badly as she did? Hey, at least she’d made him happy for a little while and had brought him out of the slump he’d been in after April had slit her wrists in the bathroom and he had read that note, only to find out that both he and his recently dead girlfriend had HIV? Why did Maureen’s equipment break down? What force on Earth, what God had decided to have both him and Joanne, two people who had or were experiencing the same things, in the same spot at the exact same time? If Mark hadn’t tangoed with her or the two of them had not worked together to fix that microphone (though that was more him), he wouldn’t consider her a friend now. He probably still would despise her for being his ex-girlfriend’s new girlfriend. Now, though, now all Mark saw was a friend who he could sincerely relate to. The two of them just seemed to click, and for that, he was particularly thankful. His friendship with her actually helped him a lot to get over Maureen. Made it clearer the two of them had no hope of getting back together.

But, why, why did it all happen the way it did? Why was he the witness to it all? Why was he the narrator behind his old, wind-up camera? Why did he have to tell the story of all that was happening? Why did he have to be the one cursed with the ability to document real life? Why him? Why was Mark Cohen the one who had to watch his friends slowly die off, one by one?

The hardest thing to stomach, though, the hardest thing to stomach was that when he finished this “film,” it would mean that it would be the end, and he would be alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey hey, this is a little something for my Rent buddy, who this is gifted to. We had a really nice conversation in the comments sections of one of their works, and they dedicated a work to me, so I figured it was about time I made something for them. In four days, it will have been a month since that work was posted. Hope you remember me, haha. I would've worked on this earlier, but between school and all that jazz, I've been busy and, if I'm being honest? I've had absolutely zero motivation to write. The only reason why I actually got down to writing this was because I had to make a writing sample for my Mark Cohen roleplay account on Instagram (y'all should join the Rent roleplay community, it's literally only a few people who are active. We need more people). Anyway, I know this isn't smut, but I hope you enjoy this. If this is well received, I might get motivation to write another fanfiction. This is not my first time writing Mark, because I actually am writing something with someone right now where they do Maureen and it's Mark's Bar Mitzvah. That being said, this is my second time writing Mark, so I'm still very new to it. I hope I was able to be accurate with his character! Anyway, sorry for this being so long. I hope that whoever read this enjoyed it! Feedback and constructive criticism are appreciated! Oh, and I'll get to reading your most recent stuff right now!


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